Vietnam Airlines is facing the lengthy loss of one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Following an incident involving a tail strike on August 15, the aircraft remained grounded at Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss International Airport (MUC) for more than a week. Unfortunately for the Vietnamese flag carrier, it looked likely to stretch to several weeks, if not longer.

Owing to the type of aircraft involved, or more specifically the material used to build it, a fix would be no simple process anyway. That was before the severity of the incident and the investigation process were factored in too. So what happened, why is a 787 involved, and why might Vietnam Airlines have to wait a while to get it back?

Vietnam Airlines Flight VN34

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Bound for Hanoi Noi Bai International (HAN) from Munich, flight VN34 ran into trouble while taking off. Having departed at 13:57 local time from Munich’s runway 26L, the Vietnam Airlines 787 returned to the airport just over two hours later and landed on runway 26R.

As it transpired, the jet had overshot the end of the paved section of runway 26L and suffered a tail strike during a late rotation. After eventually gaining altitude, the aircraft spent the next two hours being vectored south of the airport to dump fuel and prepare for an emergency landing. Runway 26R was then briefly closed after the 787 touched down safely, with all 271 passengers and 16 crew ultimately disembarking unharmed.

A preliminary report from Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation subsequently noted that “tire tracks were identified at the end of the runway that could be attributed to the aircraft”. Vietnamese and US investigators were also now involved, it added, with the ultimate cause of the accident yet to be determined. Time will tell what really happened, but tail strikes are no uncharted territory for the industry.

Tail Strikes Among Most Common Accidents Globally

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Tail strikes make up a large proportion of accidents in global aviation today. Alongside landing gear events, runway excursions, and other instances of damage being sustained on the ground, such cases where an aircraft’s rear end comes into contact with a runway either at the point of takeoff or landing were the most common type of incident to be recorded last year.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), 51 accidents were recorded among 38.7 million flights globally in 2025. By region of carrier registration, the total comprised seven in Africa, six in Asia-Pacific, four in the Commonwealth of Independent States, 11 in Europe, five in Latin America and the Caribbean, one in the Middle East and North Africa, 16 in North America, and one in North Asia.

Specific figures as to how many of these involved a tail strike were not disclosed. However, IATA flagged that of the 34 incidents across North Asia, North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific, tail strikes were among the most common, or even the sole, type of accident during the period. That is not to say such instances were not rare; 51 accidents globally over the year left a rate of one in approximately every 760,000 flights, meaning tail strikes, plainly put, happened less frequently than that. Nonetheless, because tail strikes are among the most common of the few accidents, their causes and effects are relatively well documented.

Typical Causes & Effects Of A Tail Strike

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Overall, tail strikes have historically occurred during a greater number of landings than takeoffs, according to aviation safety site Skybrary. They have also typically been caused by human error, with strong winds naturally increasing the potential for an event.

Skybrary lists several common causes of tail strikes. During takeoff, these include incorrectly set elevator trim or a mis-trimmed stabilizer, aircraft rotation at the wrong speed or at an excessive rate, and improper use of a plane’s flight director. During landing, these include an unstabilized approach, holding off the runway too long during flare, and crosswinds—as noted above. Over-rotation during a go-around is also a common cause of a tail strike, per the website.

In terms of damage, a tail strike during landing tends to be more serious than the equivalent event during takeoff, largely because of the difference in the amounts of energy absorbed by the airframe in either instance. In any such case, the aft pressure bulkhead — a dome-shaped wall sealing off the pressurized passenger area at the back of an aircraft’s cabin — is particularly vulnerable, for instance. While any transport plane can be susceptible to a tail strike, its specific design can play a role. Namely, the materials used can massively affect the repair process.

Tail Strike Repair Job Differs Between Composite and Aluminum Airframes

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Broadly speaking, the commercial aviation industry is transitioning from traditional aircraft built largely from aluminum to newer models that incorporate advanced composite materials. Boeing’s very own 787 marked a turning point in this shift, with its key rival soon following suit via the Airbus A350. Each of these next-generation models is made predominantly of composites rather than traditional materials, making them the first of their kind.

The reason was simple: Composites boast a higher strength-to-weight ratio than their predecessors, improve efficiency, and offer greater resistance to fatigue and corrosion. But they are far from perfect. Despite their benefits, composites are far more complicated to work with than aluminum. Specifically, when it comes to handling stress or impacts, aluminum and composites react very differently.

Where aluminum will typically deform and become visibly dented or stretched before finally breaking, composites do not bend or dent in the same way. Instead, an impact can cause cracking within the material and the separation between its layers in a process known as delamination. This means damage can extend beneath the surface and be hard to gauge from simple visual inspections.

Damage To Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787 VN-A867

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In the case of VN34, where the aircraft suffered a tail strike during a late rotation, the true extent of the repair job might not have been immediately obvious. Reports make it clear the jet suffered extensive visual damage. But as a 787-9, made up of roughly 80% composites by volume, determining how far that actually extended beneath the skin would no doubt be a complicated task in itself.

As Fahad Naim, an aircraft maintenance engineer, shared on X shortly after the incident.

“The whole tail strike module is gone. There’s a clear puncture through the lower fuselage, with torn composite and heavy scrape marks running aft.”

Indeed, the component designed to detect and signal any contact to the flight deck, which itself sits on a replaceable metal pad installed to withstand the impact of a tail strike, was torn away during the event. In its absence: A hole in the fuselage offering a view of the 787’s internal composite structure.

Needless to say, the resulting fix would not be simple, requiring Boeing’s own specialists and extensive work.

“This jet is going to be aircraft on ground for a very long time. Minimum two months of work,” Naim explained.

For Vietnam Airlines, that means a long wait and the headache of operating a widebody down.

One of 17 Vietnam Airlines 787s

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Registered VN-A867, the 787 was one of 17 in Vietnam Airlines’ Dreamliner ranks at the time of writing. Alongside 14 A350s, these formed the carrier’s 33-strong widebody fleet. All told, its unscheduled and likely lengthy grounding would leave a hefty gap for the airline to fill.

In the two days alone prior to its runway overrun and tail strike, VN-A867 made eight trips, including domestic hops within Vietnam and longer-haul connections to and from India, based on FlightAware data. Another flight on the morning of August 15 took it to Munich, with its return meant to follow soon after that afternoon. That means an aircraft scheduled for nine services over just three days was abruptly pulled from Vietnam Airlines service, with potentially several months before it can be returned to duty.